Hebrew Lesson 1 - Letters אותיות /otiyot/
Hi everyone, and welcome to my first lesson for learning Hebrew! I want to cover all the basics as a resource and hopefully move on to more interesting grammar points, vocabulary lists, slang, and cultural points. I plan on posting about once or twice a week, and each post will have tags to help sort through them. Without further ado!
To be able to read and study Hebrew independently, we need to look at the Hebrew /alef.bet/, or the Hebrew alphabet. Hebrew has 22 letters in total, with some letters having a second form. The letters as they appear in the dictionary are as follows. Remember that Hebrew is read from right to left.
א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת
I’ve grouped them into sets depending on difficulty, or how complicated the letter can be.
No Drama Letters
ג - called /gimel/, and is always pronounced as a hard /g/ as in goat or go
ד - called /dalet/, is pronounced as the /d/ in dog
ז - called /zayn/, is pronounced as the /z/ in zoo
ח - called /xet/, is the the guttoral hacking sound like in the German Bach. It’s a sound made at the back of the throat with turbulence. In transcription, I’ll be writing an /x/ for this letter.
ט - called /tet/, is pronounced as /t/ in tip
ל - called /lamed/, is pronounced as the /l/ in lip
ס - called /samex/, is pronounced as the /s/ in sea
ק - called /kuf/, is pronounced as the /k/ in key.
ר - called /resh/, is can be pronounced as either the growled French/German /r/ or the trilled Spanish/Russian /r/. But store bought will do just as fine.
ת - called /tav/, is pronounced as the /t/ in tip
And Dot Your P’s
Some letters will have their sound change depending on whether or not a דגש /dagesh/ is present. A /dagesh/ is dot found in the middle of the letter. In normal typeset, the /dagesh/ is not written, so its presence has to either be rote memorized or be expected by understanding some phonological rules, which I’ll get to hopefully in a later post.
בּ כּ פּ
ב - called /bet/, can be pronounced as either the /b/ in bed with the dagesh or the /v/ in vet without
כ - called /kaf/, can be pronounced as either the /k/ in kite with the dagesh or the /x/ in the German Bach without.
פ - called /pe/, can be pronunced as either the /p/ in piano with the dagesh or the /f/ in flow without.
My Final Form
כ - We already saw /kaf/ above, but not only does it have two sounds depending on whether it has a /dagesh/ or not, it also has two forms. The first is כ is appears either by itself, at the beginning or in the middle of a word. The second form is ך, and appears only at the end of the word, it also is always pronounced as a /x/.
מ - called /mem/, is pronounced as the /m/ in mat. The non-final form is מ and the final form is ם
נ - called /nun/, is pronounced as the /n/ in nap. The non-final form is נ and the final form is ן
פ - Like /kaf/, we saw pe above. The non-final form is פ and the final form is ף and is always pronounced as an /f/ in fit.
צ - called /tsade/, is pronounced as the /ts/ in cats. The non-final form is צ and the final form is ץ
A Little Bit Extra
א - called /alef/, it has no sound on its own, rather it carries or precedes a vowel, which we’ll learn in our next lesson
ה - called /he/, is pronounced as the /h/ in hat. However at the end of words it’s generally not pronounced.
ו - called /vav/, is pronounced as the /v/ in vote. Often however, it carries a vowel like alef, and stands for an /o/ or /u/ sound.
י - called /yud/, is pronounced as the /y/ in yarn. Like alef and vav, it carries a vowel sometimes, and stands for an /e/ or /i/ sound.
ע - called /‘ayn/, it acts similar to alef, carrying a vowel. In transcription, I’ll be adding an apostrophe to differentiate it from an /alef/
ש - called /shin/, is similar to the letters with/without the /dagesh/, and can be pronounced two different ways. In כתיב מנוקד /ktiv menukad/ if a dot is found above the upper right, it is called /shin/ and pronounced as the /sh/ in sheets. If a dot is found above the upper left, it is called /sin/ and pronounced as the /s/ in soak.
Transformers, Letters in Disguise
As a final list to round out the /aleph.bet/, there are extra notations to represent some international sounds. A גרש /geresh/ or apostrophe is added after the letter.
ג׳ - is pronounced as the j in jam
ז׳ - is pronounced as the s in pleasure
צ׳ - is pronounced as the ch in chat
81 notes
·
View notes
Some language learning prompts for those of us with way too much free time right now
2+ Months of Language Learning Prompts!
Sometimes it can be tricky to know what to learn if you are teaching yourself a language. Here are some ideas for what you can focus on learning each day for the first two months of learning a new language! I formatted it so there is the general topic for the day and then in parentheses are some ideas to get you started but you can definitely learn a lot more than what I’ve written down! These are just to help generate some ideas!
This definitely would move pretty quickly if you covered all this material in 2 months so you could definitely spend more time on each topic if you need! This would require quite a bit of time each day in order to learn it all. This could totally work for a 4 or 6-month challenge where you spend 2 or 3 days on each of the topics I listed if you don’t have enough time to cover each topic in just one day!
Polite phrases (thank you, please, yes/no, you’re welcome, I’m sorry)
Introductory phrases (hi, my name is, I’m from, I speak, how are you?)
Pronouns (I, you, he, she, they, we)
Basic people vocab (girl, boy, man, woman, person, child)
Basic verbs in present tense (to eat, to drink, to walk, to read, to write, to say)
Sentence structure (how to form some basic sentences)
Negative sentences (I do not __)
Question words (who, what, where, when, why, how, how to form questions)
Numbers (0-20, 30, 40, 50, 100, 1,000, 1,000,000)
Time (hour, minute, half hour, reading the time)
Meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, dessert, appetizer)
Basic foods (apple, banana, rice, bread, pasta, carrot, soup, water)
More foods (beef, pork, fruit, vegetable, juice, coffee, tea, chocolate, cake)
Kitchen (stove, oven, kitchen, fridge, table, chair, bake, boil)
Eating supplies (knife, spoon, fork, plate, bowl, cup, glass)
More verbs (to make, to have, to see, to like, to go, to be able to, to want, to need)
Family (father, mother, son, daughter, aunt, uncle, cousin, grandmother, grandfather, parents, grandparents)
Transportation (car, train, plane, bus, bicycle, airport, train station)
City locations (apartment, building, restaurant, movie theater, market, hotel, bank)
Directions (north, south, east, west, right, left)
Adjectives (good, bad, smart, delicious, nice, fun)
More verbs (to give, to send, to wake up, to cry, to love, to hate, to laugh)
Colors (red, yellow, blue, green, purple, black, white, brown)
Emotions (happy, sad, calm, angry)
Physical descriptions (tall, short, blonde, brunette, redhead, eye color)
Body parts (arm, leg, hand, finger, foot, toe, face, eye, mouth, nose, ears)
Descriptors (rich, poor, beautiful, ugly, expensive, inexpensive)
Basic clothing (shirt, pants, dress, skirt, jacket, sweater, skirt, shorts)
Accessories (belt, hat, wallet, gloves, sunglasses, purse, watch)
More verbs (to keep, to smile, to run, to drive, to wear, to remember)
Animals (cat, dog, horse, cow, bear, pig, chicken, duck, fish)
More animals (turtle, sheep, fox, mouse, lion, deer)
Months (January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December)
Seasons (fall, winter, spring, summer)
Weather (sunny, cloudy, hot, cold, snowing, raining)
States of being (I’m hungry, I’m tired, I’m thirsty)
House (bedroom, living room, bathroom, stairs)
Furniture (bed, lamp, couch, door, window)
Electronics (phone, TV, computer, camera, radio, headphones)
Nature (tree, flower, plant, animal, grass, animal, outside, sky, sun, moon, clouds)
More verbs (to teach, to learn, to understand, to know, to listen, to hear)
School (classroom, elementary school, high school, college, student, class, grade, homework, test)
School subjects (math, science, English, art, music, chemistry, biology, physics)
School supplies (book, pencil, pen, paper, notebook, folder, backpack, calculator)
Classroom features (student desk, teacher desk, whiteboard, chalk, clock, bell)
Jobs (teacher, scientist, doctor, artist, dancer, musician)
More jobs (surgeon, manager, engineer, architect, lawyer, dentist, writer)
More verbs (to buy, to sell, to work, to ask, to answer, to dance, to leave, to come)
Comparisons (less than, more than, same, __er than)
Languages (French, German, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, English, Japanese)
Countries (France, Germany, China, Russia, Spain, Mexico, United States, Japan)
Religion (church, temple, mosque, to pray, Judaism, Christianity, Islam)
Past tense (I was, he ran, she wrote)
Hobbies (shopping, sports, soccer, chess, fishing, gardening, photography)
More verbs (to describe, to sleep, to find, to wish, to enter, to feel, to think)
Art (paint, draw, painting, gallery, frame, brush)
Morning routine (to wake up, to brush teeth, toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, soap)
Future tense (I will run, he will write)
TV + internet (online, internet, to watch TV, TV show, movie, documentary, cartoon)
More verbs (to look for, to stay, to touch, to meet, to show, to rent, to wash, to play)
7K notes
·
View notes